Netherlands

In 2013 research collaborations between IIASA and Dutch researchers developed a range of research tools and methods in areas including agriculture, air pollution, and energy.

Map of the Netherlands

Highlights of research collaborations between IIASA and researchers in the Netherlands in 2013 include:

A comparative assessment of the costs and benefits of achieving universal energy access.

Global coverage of IIASA's GAINS tool for the systematic assessment of the co-benefits of strategies to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions simultaneously. This was facilitated by national implementations of the GAINS model for specific countries, including the Netherlands.

In addition, seven young scientists from the Netherlands or based at Dutch universities took part in IIASA's programs for young scientists.

Netherlands

The Agro-Ecological Systems (AES) team joined the IMPACT2C project which explores the likely impacts of a 2°C rise in global mean temperature in Europe and in three vulnerable areas in other parts of the world outside Europe: Bangladesh, Africa, and the Maldives. more

In 2013, the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program achieved global coverage of its GAINS (Greenhouse gas – Air pollution Interactions and Synergies) tool for the systematic assessment of co-benefits strategies, in close collaboration with a large number of national teams. more

The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program actively participated in two comparison exercises with the GLOBIOM model, looking at how the model reacts to different scenarios of climate change. more

Work in the area of energy access involved important developments and refinements of the MESSAGE-Access model and its expansion to include decentralized electricity supply in South Asia and regional coverage for China. more

In multiple objectives, trade-offs, and games, development of a user-friendly prototype software tool for Multiple-Criteria Model Analysis (MCMA) was completed, the co-benefits of key energy sustainability objectives were revealed, and decision-support system (DSS) with multiple objectives of energy users, producers, and legislative authorities were designed. more

There was substantial outreach activity by the Transitions to New Technologies (TNT) Program in 2013 with respect to summarizing and disseminating previous multi-year research projects and assessment activities plus the editing of a book, three special journal issues, and publication of 40 articles and book chapters. more

The Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program has been been developing quantile-based stochastic optimization methods to produce solutions that are robust against growing economic, social, environmental risks with respect to all potential uncertainties. more

Europe

The Agro-Ecological Systems (AES) team joined the IMPACT2C project which explores the likely impacts of a 2°C rise in global mean temperature in Europe and in three vulnerable areas in other parts of the world outside Europe: Bangladesh, Africa, and the Maldives. more

Since 2011 the Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program has been developing an agent-based model (ABM) “Dream Valley” which is able to simulate the economic, social, and environmental interactions and dynamics of a region. more

World Population Program (POP) researchers challenge the widespread notion that replacement level fertility is the most desirable level of fertility for countries currently both above and below that level. more

Currently emerging “big data” techniques are reshaping many fields of science into data science. The Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program in 2013 began developing tools to gain added value from large data clusters. more

Changes in water availability and water temperature under climate change are likely to lead to higher electricity prices for most of Europe, according to a new study by IIASA's Water Futures and Solutions Initiative (WFaS). more

In 2013 the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program's Policy Science Interface (PSI) group together with ESM Forest Ecosystems Management (FEM) continued their involvement in the recharge.green project that aims to analyze bio-energy potential and impacts in the Alps from biomass, solar, wind, and hydro. more

As part of a larger project, Forecasting Societies’ Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change, a Special Feature entitled Education and Differential Vulnerability to Natural Disasters was published in the journal, Ecology & Society. more

Research on energy security by the Energy Program (ENE) centers around applying the formal conceptual framework for evaluating energy security in long-term energy scenarios. The framework was established by ENE researcher Jessica Jewell in collaboration with colleagues from the Central European University (CEU, Hungary). more

The Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program is coordinating a project which aims at an open and in-depth discussion and analysis of dimensions of economic integration covering Russia, its neighbors, and the European Union, as well as in a larger trans-continental framework where integration extends also to the key Asian players more

Agricultural products imported to Europe accounted for more than one-third of global deforestation associated with international agricultural trade, according to a new policy-oriented report prepared by a European consortium including IIASA, and published by the European Commission. more

Research addressed the assessment of adaptation options to forest fires in Europe under projected climate change - a pioneering attempt to quantify impacts of reactive and preventive adaptation strategies within one modeling framework at a regional scale. more

Recent Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) research addressed how a multi-risk approach (MRA) can be implemented in different governance systems marked by different degrees of centralization in policy and decision-making processes. more

As environmental problems do not respect disciplinary boundaries, integrated assessment modeling, pioneered by IIASA, is a useful adjunct to environmental policy analysis, integrating knowledge from more than one domain into a single framework. more

Within the framework of the AMPERE project, ENE in 2013 led the multi-model comparison effort involving international partners from Asia, the United States and Europe to evaluate the impact of near-term climate policies. more

The Energy (ENE) Program has been at the forefront of several research efforts for the wider science community. These include the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and two international model inter-comparison projects that were successfully completed in 2013 (EMF27 and AMPERE). more

The aim of the project was to analyze two contrary and yet sustainable forest management options under the influence of climate change: maximization of forest stock and maximization of forest increment. more

Similarly to ecosystems, social systems – from firms to countries – are becoming more and more subject to various stressors whose effects penetrate throughout the system by means of social ties and economic links. The external disturbances here may be of political, economic, financial and even environmental nature. more

In 2013 Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) researchers looked at multilevel governance approaches in climate and energy policy, the need for improved macroeconomic governance to promote sustainable development, and the importance of taking account of stakeholder inputs in the governance of the commons. more

Managing the risks of climate change is part of a more generalized approach to promoting sustainable development by reducing the vulnerability associated with climate risk. In 2013 the Risk, Poverty and Vulnerability Program (RPV) looked at various aspects of minimizing risk ahead of adverse weather-related impacts, including extreme events. more

Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) analysts in 2013 looked at how the energy transition might be constrained by the vulnerability of solar energy systems to extreme event risks in a changing climate. more

As the methods used to measure and inventory GHG emissions have significant uncertainties and gaps, the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program has been developing an advanced methodology of a Terrestrial Ecosystems Full Verified GHG Budget. more

The World Population Program (POP) researchers in 2013 identified and elaborated critical policy gaps and possible solutions for a report on the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) region, entitled "Population Trends and Policies in the UNECE Region: Outcomes, Policies and Possibilities." more

Total uncertainty in greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions changes over time due to “learning” and the structural change in the GHG emitters. Understanding uncertainty over time is important to improve setting emission targets in the future and was key to the Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program's work in 2013. more

Netherlands

Vassilis Daioglou looks at the contribution of bio-energy as an emission mitigation measure and compares the results of two integrated assessment models to see how system representation affects the results. more

David E. Eitelberg outlines his YSSP project work, which compared the downscaling methods of scenarios modeled using the CLUMondo, GCAM, and GLOBIOM models to explain differences in spatial allocation of global agricultural lands. more

Trond Husby summarizes his YSSP project, in which he analyzed the macroeconomic impacts on the Dutch economy that would occur if there were a partial shift in the allocation of risk from the public to the private sector. more

Europe

Vassilis Daioglou looks at the contribution of bio-energy as an emission mitigation measure and compares the results of two integrated assessment models to see how system representation affects the results. more

David E. Eitelberg outlines his YSSP project work, which compared the downscaling methods of scenarios modeled using the CLUMondo, GCAM, and GLOBIOM models to explain differences in spatial allocation of global agricultural lands. more

Dmytro Melnyk looks at the range of possible climate change impacts on Ukrainian agriculture, Ukraine's possible role in maintaining world agricultural production and food security under climate change, and the country's potential to increase agricultural exports. more

Emilio L. Cano describes his YSSP project in which he used advanced stochastic optimization under quantile-based security constraints to consider a robust optimum portfolio of energy decisions for building managers. more

Pietro Landi assesses how the interplay between natural and artificial selection, in the simplest setting in which fishery and stock co-evolve, could lead to trait diversification due to disruptive selection. more

Veronika Bertram-Hümmer of the German Institute for Economic Research, Berlin, Germany, aimed to identify the determinants of index-insurance uptake before the harsh winter in Mongolia in 2009-2010 to discover whether index-insurance payouts enhanced household recovery following the disaster. more

Markus Enenkel gives initial results of his YSSP project which focused on the development of i) a new, transparent drought index derived from satellite data and ii) a mobile phone application to speed up the assessment of food security-related vulnerabilities. more

Dominique Thronicker presents the outcomes of her YSSP project which aimed to further the understanding of the historic change of technologies that can provide analogies for new environmental add-on technologies. more

Xi Pang shows the outcomes of her YSSP project, in which she connected existing models for calculating timber, pulp, and bio-energy production, with new methods for biodiversity, carbon stock, and recreation evaluation. more

Nicklas Forsell is working with the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program with a focus on improving understanding of forest ecosystems and devising sustainable management strategies for them, both as sinks for carbon and as potential providers of fuel for energy. more

Eva-Maria Nordström discusses her postdoctoral work which aims to link two IIASA models and one Swedish model to create scenarios consistent with the IPCC Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) for a set of alternative Swedish forest management strategies. more

Juliana Gil summarizes the finding of her YSSP project in which she investigated the drivers of and barriers to land use transitions under different scenarios, and their impact on the GHG emissions of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. more

Trond Husby summarizes his YSSP project, in which he analyzed the macroeconomic impacts on the Dutch economy that would occur if there were a partial shift in the allocation of risk from the public to the private sector. more